I have put this off for a long time but after seven revisions of my response to the comments on my last post, I've decided that maybe I need to say something about religion after all.
To start, let me say that if I had to mark a box on the census form, I would identify myself as a Christian but today that means very little and is probably less accurate than you think. First of all, it seems like everyone today is a Christian--Christian Scientists, Adventists, Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons, Masons, and a whole slew other groups (I just named a few). But If you asked people from anyone of these groups, they would probably disagree with the category "Christian" for at least half of the others. Thus, if you asked me in conversation, I would probably just tell you "I am a person of faith."
And why is that? Why just "a person of faith" instead of identifying myself as one or another? That's because I find that all labels come on boxes--and by boxes I mean a certain set of preconceived images or ideas about what it means to be X. If I said I was Catholic then people would think of celibate priests, crusty tradition and big old buildings. If I said Mormon, people would think of bit white, exclusive temples and secret underwear. If I said Evangelical, people would think of street preachers, no alcohol and scandals.
I don't want to be in any of those boxes. In fact, I don't want to be in a box period. I want to be known and identified for the good things I've done, the equality I believe in, the acceptance I freely give, and the Benevolence that dwells within me. I have yet to find a box whose label is associated with those four things.
To give you some reference, my background is Evangelical; I became a Christian with the Assemblies of God, I was baptized with the AG and I went to an AG university. I think that if you cut me about 5 years ago, I probably would have bled AG. But too much AG can be a bad thing.
After 9 years, I found that the AG Evangelicals were more about show prayers, fancy productions, hip songs, three pointed sermons, attendance cards, and "faith giving" (i.e. tithing more than 10%) than actually having the personal relationship with God which their denomination advertises. And yeah, there were weird things too.
I once checked out a popular church amongst other Northwesters called City Church (I believe they are considered non-denominational) and what I found was hundreds of little male clones of the youth pastor and everyone was talking about how inspired and spiritual he was. You know what he talked about that night? He spent the entire time relating God to bricks of Tillamock Cheese and his recent tour of their factory. The whole service had very little to do about God. It was a personality cult.
Another time, on a friend's suggestion, I checked out a video sermon series from Mars Hill Church (an Acts 29 church that is currently one of the fasted growing churches in America) on men and women in marriage. What I heard was very little about how to be a better husband and more about what kinds of losers there are out there and lots of accusations to the tune of "once a loser, always a loser." He did all of this with lots of yelling and screaming at the men in the audience. For the women's message, he toned it down and laid on the sugar; his message: women should be submissive to their husband, shouldn't work and certainly shouldn't preach. This had nothing to do with the equality, acceptance and forgiveness of God. This had everything to do with the punishment, duty and boundaries of one man's interpretation of truth. And the yelling and screaming? That is theatrics. That is one man trying to imitate the righteous anger of God. This too is a personality cult and a little more show than substance.
And my final example will be a burgeoning AG church I attended in Singapore at the recommendation of an acquaintance. I almost walked out. The pastor claimed that God gave him a message for that day to ask every member to dedicate ONE ENTIRE MONTH'S SALARY to the church. He went on to assure people that this was indeed God's word and that the consequences of changing God's word laid out in the book of Revelation was his motivation for giving them directly from God. And he told people that by choosing to not give an whole month's salary, you would be guilty of robbing God and would suffer ala Deuteronomy 11. This was plain and simple manipulation of the Bible and the congregation for the gains of the church (who was incidentally trying to buy a new piece of land for their 5th church plant). This church isn't a lamp post on the path to the pearly gates; they are the Lehman Brother's of "God's Economy" (their words, not mine).
I can't stand church anymore and it's not just the skewed messages, it's also the disingenuous and hypnotic people you meet there. As I mentioned in my comment, I have not met or made a single friend in church since I was in 9th grade. And why is that? Because they are full of little cliques and because for all of their BBQs, harvest parties and ladies luncheons, no one ever talks to the new person. There is a lot of fear in churches about what or who is on the outside because it's generally believed (though rarely voiced) that if you associate with "sinners" you will become a "sinner," and if you become a "sinner" then you'll spend eternity in hell. So, if you're new to a church, you're basically regarded as an unknown and therefore a little dangerous. But who's to blame them, right? People generally stick to what they know. People like comfort. No one wants to have those awkward first conversations. No one wants to ask if you're a Christian and find out that you're not. So they just don't say anything.
And when they do feign interest, it's often short and a little bit fake because if they don't find you immediately interesting, their easy out is, "Oh, excuse me, I just saw someone I need to talk to," and there you are, alone again and ignored by the other happy people chatting away around you.
If you have managed to break into the "community," you'll often find people tell you that your grandmother's death is terrible and they'll "be praying for you." How many of those people do you think actually do? Or maybe I should ask how many times have you said that and then didn't? For me, too many. I don't like that kind of shallowness and my decision to leave church was partially a decision to leave that kind of life.
It was also partly to get away from people so in love with their pastor and his "message" that they were two steps away from tattooing his name on their ass (and that's his, not her's remember; very few churches employ women for roles other than secretary). I have seen far too many people leave their brain at the door and just accept everything their pastor says as truth. I would really like to know how every pastor is so inspired by God that they have a "message" from him each Sunday. Is there a mailing list I should sign up to? I mean, I thought there was only one Pope (okay, two--him plus Debbie Pope) but it seems anyone with a high school degree can interpret or deliver God's word these days. And I really mean that. You would be surprised if you knew how many pastors out there preach but have no academic background at all in religious history or Biblical texts.
Last time I checked, pastors were human beings who made mistakes, failed to attain omniscience and thought bad thoughts too. But instead of seeing them for what they really are, a lot of people in churches are content to see them for what they are not: prophets.
I'm not into this whole pastoral hypnosis thing.
What I am into is compassion. I was recently branded an untrustworthy person when I decided to spend my life with a most wonderful man who isn't part of the Christian club. I've been yelled at by family and friends on the phone, I've been sent emails from "concerned" friends who quite literally said they were "worried about my eternal destination," and I've been treated like a liar and a fake by people who I used to love deeply and trust my fragile heart with. That's not love. That's not even righteousness. That's people trying to take God's judgment into their own hands.
I know what it's like to be a part of the community and then handed an eviction notice because you no longer look like you belong. But here's the shocker: I don't want to belong and I haven't for a lot longer than you may think. All of these problems with churches that I've talked about have been building in my mind since 2004 but withdrawing from a group that has defined who you are for 11 years is a lot harder than expected. Leaving the group means risking your friends, your family and your reputation. But I'm happy to. I'm happy to leave because I have wanted to for so long and because any one or any group that can't see the difference between my devotion to my faith and their perceived devotion to religion is not a group I want to be a part of. That's not the kind of box I fit into.
I'm not a Christian. I am a person of faith. I believe that God understands our faults, our weaknesses, our challenges, our love, our relationships, our circumstances, our thoughts. I believe God not only understands but he also has compassion. I believe that he is with us all the time and is a far better judge of my salvation than my friends or family who rarely write and never call. I leave my fate in God's hands. And you know, I'm far more inclined to refer to God as the Benevolent One (as one of my beautiful writer friends does) because if the old proverb is true and God really is here to "love you and not to harm you, to give you hope and a future," then I think he/she/it truly is benevolent.
I don't need to spell out all of my beliefs but what I will say is that according to the strictest of terms, I am a Christian. However, I don't attend church and look for God in messages from man. Instead, I find the Benevolent One in the simple kindness of complete strangers, the well crafted and creative work of artists, the warmth of sheets fresh out of the dryer, the pounding of my pulse after a long swim, and the full embrace of my love after a long day at work.
So, if you've had me in your "church" or "Christian" box, please consider this my formal request for removal. And if you feel the need to judge what I've written here or the nature of my relationship with Jeremy, I ask you to kindly not judge me against my boyfriend, yourself, your friends, or even against your pastor. Judge me against me or judge me against my Creator--all others are inadequate for comparison.
